One of the things I like about journalling platforms based on the LJ codebase is the easy shortcut for usernames that'll link to both the blog itself and the profile, with that nice little logo for the profile link.

ETA: At the top, unfortunately. The site where some of my icons was hosted, dammitja.net appears to be down, I'll be contacting the site owner ASAP, but in the meantime, the code does work, but won't display properly here using the icons I liked :-(

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Thing is, the nice little logo doesn't always suit the style of the place it's appearing in, or the colour scheme of the layout. So, given I know how to replace them, I thought I'd update the code and add some new tweaks. As always, CSS hackery, playing with CSS is both fun and easy, I highly recommend it for people of a web-savvy nature.

I have, naturally, chosen a Doctor Who theme to my replacement images—feel free to replace them with something else if you wish. I forget where I got the original code for to do this, it's heavily updated now, but I'd like to credit the author, so if you know, gimme a link?

Anyway. Dreamwidth users should go to the DW Custom CSS page and paste the code into the big box.

Livejournal users should go to the LJ Custom CSS page and, go on, have a guess...

Yup, copy and paste the code into the box. One little caveat—it's replacing images taken from l-stat.livejournal.com, if LJ changes their CDN again, then the URL might change and the code'll stop working, I'll update it as soon as I know to, it's likely to be a simple change the letter hack (it used to be p-stat.*)

The Colin icon is taken from allah_sulu's Ten Doctor's. If you want to use different images, then replacing the image location is fairly easy, just make sure you also change the dimensions in the 'padding' area, the first two are effectively height and width.

I deliberately haven't done one for OpenID accounts, I might change my mind on that but I think the OpenID logo ought to be got used to. I'm considering a DW staff replacement, but not sure what I should go for (either Five or appeal a bit). Haven't bothered with sponsored Comms, probably ought to, not doing so means the image won't show up at all.

Two posts in a row by completely different blogs, both discussing the Bechdel Test, which I've always found fascinating[1]. If you're not aware of it, it's a fairly simple little test to apply to an entertainment:

1. Does it have at least two women in it,2. Who [at some point] talk to each other,3. About something besides a man.

See? How easy is that to fulfil as an objective? Everything should pass that one, right? Shame it's not true. Shame that, in reality, a huge amount of stuff, including stuff with strong female lead characters, fails it. Even authors that consciously try to ensure their work isn't sexist manage to fail it regularly, as Charlie Stross has found out. It seems though, that despite many of the writers gender neutrality failings, Doctor Who doesn't do too badly, even taking into account the added complication of the significant central character being male.

Of course, the test isn't perfect—there are some perfectly good films where none of the characters are realistic, male or female, and in some it would be innapropriate to try to fulfil it. But for most shows or films, that are supposedley 'realistic', don't you think it should be a fairly normal thing to manage? Charlie's conclusion goes further than I think I would, but he's probably not too far off[2]:

The current decade is characterized by ... a socially conservative culture, of retreat from liberalism, and a strong anti-feminist backlash. Our popular media, far from being the bastions of liberal values ... are actually belwethers of popular culture, ... reflecting our culture's normative values back at us ... What they're showing this decade is really rather disturbing if you happen to agree with the core feminist ideological belief that women are real people too, not just baby factories and sex objects.

TV has always been bad ... but of late, the messages coming at us out of the mass media are nothing short of toxic. If movies and TV objectified people of colour the way they do women, the only reasonable conclusion one could draw would be that a concerted propaganda campaign was under way to return us to the unquestioned institutional racism of the 1950s.

Given that I watch a lot less TV than most people, and even fewer films, is he right?[1] Or scary, or just Plain Wrong, depending on how bad the film or show in question actually is. I'm pretty sure it was innerbrat that first made me aware of it.

[2] I'm excising a lot of text from this quote, marked by elipses, I do think the whole post is worth reading in its own right though.

Meh. Watched it twice now. But when I went to fill in the diggerdydumreaction poll, the "what was the best bit?" question? Completely stumped me.

Sure, there were some nice set pieces, some funny bits and similar, but nothing stood out and made me go "cool!". Combine that with the Return of the King style multiple endings and you've got an extended episode with enough plot for about 30 minutes.

Dear Rusty, in your next job, can you learn how to write a climax and an ending please? Your set ups are great, it's just, well, meh.

Can't be arsed thinking up a reaction poll, plan to do a whole season poll tomorrow, what'd you lot think?

So, I haven't been doing my normal Doctor Who reaction polls so far, partially because I've been a bit bored of the whole thing, partially because I've got a bit of writers block and aren't writing much of anything, and partially because, well, Donna is annoying me and Tennant isn't getting much better. Haveing said that, tonights was actually OK, so much that I want to watch it again and try to make a more informed judgement, while trying to ignore Donna's repeating-herself-three-times annoyingness.

As usual, I really want to like it, but I'm just getting jaded. I really like Tennant as a bloke in the Confidentials, I just dislike the way he plays the Doctor. I don't like Tate at all, and never have. Planet of the Ood was better than the previous two, and that it had ( SPOILER! )

I guess it wasn't awful, I think overall I would've enjoyed it if I could get past my dislike of Tate and Tennant's Pretty!Boy! smugness. Ah well, others have enjoyed it. For a more balanced view, with actual knowledge and analysis, Pen's review is rather good.Microblogging by SMS, using LoudTwitter and Twitter.

Went to Leeds today, Jennie's off for a hen night in York this evening so split the journey up. Plan had been to have lunch in the excellent Scarbrough Hotel opposite the station, but it was packed full of Leeds fans and all the seating was taken by a hen party, so we went on into town and ended up lucking out with seating at Whitelocks. Considering that it's the oldest pub in Leeds, it's damn impressive. Went there before[2] but not actually had a meal. Um, yeah. Menu made it look a bit pricy. Really, it's not. It's really not. I ordered veggie bangers and mash with a side of onion rings. Plate full. And really really good. Jennie had roast chicken. She got a roast chicken. Seriously. It even looked good to me, and I don't eat meat. If you're in Leeds and looking for good food or good beer, either is worth a try, and Whitelocks is just cool anyway.

We wandered a bit after that, I wanted to get hold of a book. Smiths didn't have it, but they did have a nice pile of DVDs on offer and, well, we couldn't resist, so more classic Who[1] and a few other things, including a boxed set of wooden board games[3]. Waterstone's didn't have it either, but they did have an import of Android's Dream so that's ok. We decided that out of Borders and Waterstone's, Waterstone's wins, could've spent all day there, easily. Instead we just spent money we don't really have. Ah well, books are never bad.

So, given she's off galivanting in York and I'm not in the mood to go back out, it's me, the dogs, a wide screen TV and a glass (or three) of whisky. After a nice long bath that is. What should I watch first then?

[Poll #1162622] [1] And some 5th Doctor stuff, does that count as "classic"?[2] our first proper 'date' as it happens[3] Does anyone actually play backgammon properly? Never actually tried it.

Right then, managed to rewatch it without distractions via Virgin On Demand, so, well, poll[1] time (contains plot spoilers):[Poll #1111566]In case it's not obvious from the above, I thought it started well, had some great ideas, then, as usual with RTD's stuff, turned into an OTT "we're so cool" festival of silliness. It might be that the Doctor's messiah/god complex will be a plot point for the next season, but that's the only excuse for doing it in two episodes in a row. Good Xmas day entertainment? Possibly, but as usual, sorry Rusty, C-, Could Do Better.[1] For those reading this via a different feed (like as a note on Facebook), the bulk of the entry is a Livejournal poll, to vote in it you need either an account or to login using any OpenID. Facebookers can use the Identitude application, but if you've got a Wordpress.com, Typekey, Technorati, AOL or other OpenID provider account you can use that if you want. Blogger users will need to add code to their template—can tell you how if you want or you can follow this simple walkthrough.

There are still some things about the settings on this laptop that confuse me. To save a PSD from ImageReady as a Gif, if the source file was a jpg, I have to edit it with photoshop. But then when saving it from photoshop it says "saved using ImageReady" in the dialogue. But I can't find that dialogue in ImageReady. Not an issue at all, just weird. Anyway, made a new icon (some might recognise it from one of my old forum sigs, back when silly kids used to complain I wasn't nice enough when answering their idiot rules questions), and also updated a few already existing but not very good icons.

Keywords: Citizen, GentlemanWords from Dr Who, idea by calapine, with a background by anabel_icons—I liked this when I first saw it, but she'd messed up the spelling, I animated it but messed up. I was said by Hartnell in The Daleks' Master Plan (reviewed here by nhw, a fairly high google result for the phrase), and is thus cool.

Keywords: Goth, Goth RomeAnimated by me, original art by SJGames—I've just always liked it, but the old version was a bit too fast and fairly static, now I've figured out how to do more frames, why not? NB, when I use it from now on I'll use the 'Goth' keyword, the 'Goth Rome' is merely there for backwards compatibility...

Keywords: ThinkRussian intellectual catechism, from a t-shirt by New Statesman magazine—This comes back to my hatred of the UK libel laws, John Major, then Prime Minister, sued the New Statesman for printing an article asserting he wasn't having an affair with his caterer. The suit was spurious, and it was eventually dropped, but not until after the distributors and printers (because they can get sued to, as can a paperboy) settled out of court, and the Staggers indemnity insurance wasn't good enough.

A few more still to do, but I think I like animating quote icons like this, need to sort the timing out a little on these but overall I'm happy. Opinions?ETA: Above images are updated versions after feedback, they'll probably get messed around with again.

British Liberal, house husband, school play leader and stepdad. Campaigner, atheistic feminist, amateur baker. Male.

Known to post items of interest on occasions. More likely to link to interesting stuff. Sometimes talks about stuff he's done. Occasionally posts recipes for good food. Planning to get married, at some point. Enjoying life in Yorkshire.

Likes comments. Especially likes links. Loves to know where people came from and what they were looking for. Mostly posts everything publicly. Sometimes doesn't. Hi.

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I'm the Chair of the Brighouse branch of the Liberal Democrats & the membership secretary for Calderdale Lib Dems and run the web campaign for the local candidates. I have a job, a stepdaughter and a life. Here's the legal text:Printed by Dreamwidth LLC, Maryland, USA. Published and promoted by Mat Bowles (Liberal Democrat) of Brighouse, West Yorkshire.